SS CH8

Ye Fusheng caught the collapsing Xie Li with one hand and reached out to flick him hard on the forehead with the other. “You little rabbit brat! You’re really good at courting death!”

Chu Xiwei’s eyes were tightly shut, but he keenly sensed the presence of an extra person and tilted his head in their direction. “These two are…”

The woman’s feet shifted. Engaging her qinggong (lightness skill), she landed beside them and reached out to take Xie Li without uttering a word. Ye Fusheng turned around. Although the lighting here was dim, there was at least a source of light. He squinted for a moment before recognizing her—this person was the “Old Demon of Black Mountain” from earlier.

At this moment, the woman’s left hand—which was missing its pinky finger—was stroking Xie Li’s face inch by inch. From the strands of his hair down to his chin, she even carefully wiped away a speck of dust clinging to his earlobe. Her usually cloudy eyes were uncharacteristically clear. A mist of water spread through her heavily bloodshot eyes, brimming and ready to fall, but ultimately, she forced every single drop back down.

She spoke, her voice hoarse and unpleasant to the ear: “Is this… Ah-Li?”

Ye Fusheng nodded. She hugged Xie Li tightly for a good while. After a long time, she finally said, “He’s too thin. Holding him feels like hugging bones.”

This tone of voice… A thought flashed through Chu Xiwei’s mind. His facial expression didn’t change, but he suddenly felt an itch on his face. He nearly raised his palm to strike it away, but forcibly suppressed his instinct.

Ye Fusheng casually pulled back Chu Xiwei’s eyelids to take a look, then waved a hand in front of him. “It’s nothing serious. Go back, apply some medicine, and wait seven or eight days. You’ll be fine.”

That long… Chu Xiwei frowned. He spoke very politely, “Is Your Excellency well-versed in pharmacology?”

Ye Fusheng shook his head. “Just a long illness makes a patient into a doctor, that’s all… Hm?”

Chu Xiwei suddenly raised his hand, accurately and flawlessly catching Ye Fusheng’s wrist. He felt his way up, touching the calluses on the web of his hand and his palm.

Holding this hand, he praised, “A good dao.”

Ye Fusheng felt goosebumps rise all over from being touched like this. Just as Chu Xiwei was about to continue feeling around, his hand was brushed aside.

Ye Fusheng pulled his hand back and smiled. “I am Ye Fusheng, a guard of Duanshui Manor.”

That right hand unnaturally shrank back into his sleeve, perfectly concealing an old bite mark on his index finger. Only then did he let out a sigh of relief, as if he had just hidden away an inverse scale that no one was allowed to touch.

Ye Fusheng? Chu Xiwei’s lips curled up. Since when did Duanshui Manor have a person like this? A nameless nobody, yet possessing ten parts of absolute skill.

No matter how many thoughts turned in his mind, his face revealed nothing. “I am Chu Xiwei. Many thanks for your assistance.”

Ye Fusheng glanced at the shattered puppet pieces scattered at his feet, smiling but saying nothing.

This man surnamed Chu had an unknown background, and his methods were ruthless and decisive. He wasn’t from any orthodox, righteous sect, and he certainly wasn’t some good Samaritan leaping into danger for a just cause.

What did he brave such danger for? And why did he save Xie Li?

Thinking up to this point, his hands clasped behind his back moved, seemingly stretching his fingers by accident.

Crouching behind him, the woman’s body trembled.

“…I’ll take you out.” The woman stood up, her face expressionless, still holding tightly onto Xie Li. She turned and walked toward the hidden door that she and Ye Fusheng had originally entered through.

Ye Fusheng took two steps, then remembered that there was still a temporarily blind “Old Demon of Black Mountain” left behind. Out of the goodness of his heart, he turned back and asked, “Need a hand?”

Chu Xiwei lowered his hands, smiling warmly and politely. “Many thanks.”

With this smile, his breathtakingly handsome features instantly softened. His long eyebrows raised slightly, and his blood-red lips curved. It was as if a malicious ghost had suddenly gained the breath of the living, adding a beauty akin to a thousand trees bursting into bloom.

You are truly a beauty, but alas… you are a man.

Ye Fusheng shook his head, grabbed a corner of Chu Xiwei’s sleeve, and led him along to follow.

The passages here extended in all directions, with hidden doors connecting the various stone chambers. However, aside from the one just now, there were no other perilous areas fraught with mechanisms. Discovering this, Ye Fusheng couldn’t help but feel his hands itch again—it seemed that little brat wasn’t just lacking a beating in his Five Elements; he was also lacking in luck.

However, aside from the mechanism room, all the other stone chambers had hidden interlayers. This underwater secret realm seemed to be split into two halves. Without a thorough understanding of the secret passages here, one could probably only navigate half of it; the other half remained hidden behind secret doors.

The exposed areas only contained some simple items and rows of empty weapon racks—likely used by the Manor Lord of past generations when entering secluded cultivation here. The space within the interlayers, however, was completely different. Though small as a sparrow, it possessed all its vital organs. Of the basic necessities—food, clothing, shelter, and transport—it lacked only the last. However, it had long since gathered dust and fallen into ruin. It seemed someone had once lived here, but their current whereabouts were unknown.

Ye Fusheng memorized all of this as he walked. The “Old Demon of Black Mountain” was as quiet as a wooden puppet letting himself be pulled along. Suddenly turning his head, Ye Fusheng met the man’s dim, unseeing eyes staring straight at him.

Even knowing the man currently couldn’t see, Ye Fusheng still felt uncomfortable. As if sensing his gaze linger, Chu Xiwei asked, “Why are you looking at me?”

Utterly self-righteous. Spouting lies with open eyes was exactly like this.

Ye Fusheng blinked, completely shameless: “Your beauty is a feast for the eyes. I want to sleep with you.”

Chu Xiwei: “…”

Walking ahead of them, the woman’s foot twisted, nearly dropping Xie Li onto the floor.

Ye Fusheng tugged on his sleeve, feigning coyness. “I am a cut-sleeve (homosexual), yet you handed your sleeve right to my hand. If this isn’t a hint, what is it? In my opinion, why don’t we, after we get out of here…”

Chu Xiwei snatched his sleeve back, interrupting him: “I appreciate the deep affection, but this lowly one has no such intentions.”

Ye Fusheng went on to finish the second half of his sentence: “Why don’t we, after we get out of here, both go back to our respective homes and part ways cleanly?”

Chu Xiwei: “…”

To think there was actually someone so thick-skinned and shameless in this world. Unfortunately, his luck was bad, and he couldn’t see the wicked, gloating smirk on Ye Fusheng’s face right now. Otherwise, he would have had ample reason to slap his face until it bloomed like a flower.

The hand hidden inside Chu Xiwei’s sleeve slowly clenched into a fist, yet a smile appeared on his face. He was born with matchless, unparalleled good looks; a mere raise of an eyebrow and a slight curl of his lip was enough to bewitch the eyes.

For no reason at all, Ye Fusheng thought of the beautiful yaoguai (demons) from the Liaozhai tales who wore painted skins and dug out human hearts. Regardless of whether they were men or women, most of them were not the benevolent sort.

He felt that he had barely managed to scrape this life of his back, and until he fulfilled that promise from years ago, he couldn’t treat it lightly again. So, he silently recited a few lines of “form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” turned his head away like a proper gentleman, and deliberately stepped heavier so Chu Xiwei could follow without needing to be led by the hand.

The remaining chains on the woman’s body clattered with her movements. Cradling the unconscious Xie Li, she led them through a dizzying maze of twists and turns. After passing through the final stone chamber and entering a long, narrow tunnel, Chu Xiwei—even without his sight—could feel a gentle breeze brushing against his face.

He figured the end of the tunnel must be the exit. At this thought, instead of relaxing, he grew even more vigilant. In this world, there has never been a shortage of fools who capsized their boats in a shallow gutter.

Because he couldn’t see, he naturally didn’t know the rare look of astonishment on Ye Fusheng’s face.

This tunnel was actually carved straight through a single, massive boulder. There was wind at the end, but no door.

At the end of the tunnel lay a Dragon-Severing Stone weighing over a thousand jin (catties). The rock walls on both sides were artificially cast with stone slabs. Let alone a person, even a fly probably couldn’t fly out of here.

This should have been a dead end.

However, a fissure had been cleaved into the Dragon-Severing Stone by some unknown person using a weapon. It was just wide enough for an adult to barely squeeze through by hunching their shoulders and pulling their neck in. The surface of the stone was still mottled with dense, overlapping marks, looking like a spiderweb built up over years.

Scattered on the ground were several heavy, broken swords and sabers. Ye Fusheng finally understood why there wasn’t a single scrap of iron in the empty weapon racks they passed earlier—they had all been broken here.

He crouched down, picked up a snapped iron sword, and felt it carefully. Aside from the break, there was no other damage. It was evident that the person who wielded it possessed an incredibly rare, supreme level of wugong cultivation.

Bloodstains still lingered on the sword’s hilt. Because too many years had passed, the color had darkened, but the faint outline of a handprint could still be seen.

Dripping water wears through stone; it is not the work of a single day.

Ye Fusheng took a deep breath, only to hear the woman say faintly, “This was originally a dead end.”

Ye Fusheng put down the broken sword and traced the fissure on the Dragon-Severing Stone. “But someone made it out alive.”

“If someone leaves alive, then someone else must die.”

“If he didn’t leave, could both have been saved?”

The woman froze for a moment, then laughed. “It was the times, it was fate; it could not be avoided.”

This head-and-tail-less conversation between the two of them condensed the clouds of doubt in Chu Xiwei’s heart into rain, leaving his head full of fog.

The woman reluctantly stroked Xie Li’s face and handed him over to Ye Fusheng, her voice hoarse: “I can only escort you this far. Go, and do not come back again.”

Chu Xiwei raised an eyebrow, and heard Ye Fusheng ask, “After parting for so many years, does the Madam not wish to see an old friend?”

“I am already used to being a dead person who never sees the light of day.” Her fingers carefully brushed over Xie Li’s eyes, the tips of her fingers inadvertently dragging out the gesture. She seemed to be trying to trace the memory of a certain person by imagining what Xie Li would look like when he grew up.

After a long time, the woman brushed aside the messy long hair covering her face. Within her slight frown and faint smile, traces of her past beauty could still be vaguely seen.

“I am afraid that seeing the object will make me long for the person, and even more afraid that the object remains while the person has changed.”

Seeing the object makes one long for the person; the object remains while the person has changed… Whichever it was, it proved that this woman was an old acquaintance of Duanshui Manor.

While Chu Xiwei turned this over in his mind, Ye Fusheng remained silent for a moment before saying, “Then, does the Madam have any other instructions? Whatever you entrust to me, this lowly one will absolutely not decline.”

“I’m a dead person. Do I really need you to visit my grave and burn incense for me?” The woman smiled, then suddenly paused. She glanced at Ye Fusheng’s arms and changed her words, “Or perhaps… make sure Ah-Li eats more meat.”

Ye Fusheng froze, then burst into loud laughter: “Alright!”

As his word fell, Chu Xiwei heard the rustling, dragging sound of iron chains. Very quickly, only the breathing of the three of them remained in this space.

Ye Fusheng poked Xie Li’s chest with a finger. The boy instantly choked on a massive breath of air, nearly coughing his lungs out, his little face flushing completely red.

Before he could even ask questions or hurl accusations, Ye Fusheng struck first like a villain filing a complaint: “Young Manor Lord, you’re not very old, but your courage is even smaller! You fainted from fright over such a tiny little scene?”

Xie Li: “Ke… I saw a wo—”

Ye Fusheng continued to holler: “A wo-what? A woman? A little cub who hasn’t even grown all his hair yet is already starting to think about women? You’ve got quite the talent!”

Xie Li: “No, I…”

Ye Fusheng: “Right now we have to get out of this ghost place. Come here, do you see this crack? It’s so narrow I’d have to turn you into an embroidery needle to carry you on me. So hurry it up and walk yourself. Understood?”

Xie Li: “…Understood.”

Such a shameless display of bullying the young and cutting off someone’s words left Chu Xiwei absolutely amazed, feeling that his horizons had truly been broadened.

Right now, the three of them were mostly comprised of the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled. Ye Fusheng looked at the little rabbit brat who wasn’t even four feet six inches tall, then looked at the temporarily blind “Old Demon of Black Mountain,” and instantly felt that every step forward was difficult. Left with no choice, he instructed the two of them to wait here while he hunched over and squeezed in to scout the path.

Passing through the foot-long stone crevice, Ye Fusheng saw a winding stone staircase leading upward. Because no one had passed through here for far too long, the dust was thick. He carefully felt his way forward for a while and didn’t trigger any mechanisms. It seemed to be safe.

The forbidden grounds beneath Wanghaichao was the place where past generations of Duanshui Manor Manor Lord went into secluded cultivation to practice wugong. Naturally, it wouldn’t be a completely inescapable death trap. Thinking of this, Ye Fusheng remembered the massive boulder behind him and the stone chambers split into light and dark halves, and the curve of his lips grew wider and wider.

Just as he was thinking, the sound of footsteps echoed from far above the stairs, sounding like someone shuffling their feet, slowly walking down.

Ye Fusheng’s gaze sharpened, and his right hand habitually reached for his waist, only to grasp empty air. He froze, and the three parts helplessness on his face turned into seven parts bitter smile.

The footsteps grew closer and closer. Accompanied by the faint, eerie glow of candlelight, someone carrying a white paper lantern was walking down the steps. Dressed in blue robes and a green shirt, their pale face carried a ghastly, iron-green hue, looking exactly like a ghost.

Ye Fusheng cupped his hands in greeting and said, “Manor Lord Xie.”